The personal biography confuses me a little. There seems to be some Javascript running which after a few seconds redirects to the homepage (very annoying), and it's not clear who it's by. Is it written by Anno? It sure reads like it.

Also people, when making claims, remember to source them. I see a lot of what seem to be claims based on _The Notenki Memoirs_ here, but little citation...

Sailor Star Dust wrote:NHK screwed Gainax over with Nadia, maybe somebody else has more details on the how/why.

<--is most likely something Hiroyuki Yamaga said at one of his Fanime 2010 panels, based on how I seemingly posted that information from memory. (NaveryW can confirm or deny since he was there with me.)

At some point following the conclusion of the Eva TV series, two separate projects were announced or rumored: a remake of the last two episodes, which would be released on laserdisc; and and an all-new theatrical film. (According to Yuichiro Oguro, they were both announced in April 1996). In interviews following the end of the series, Anno mentions both these projects, and talks about the remake of the last two episodes as a separate project from the film.

Recently I found a more detailed explanation of this given in an interview archived on johakyu. The interview is from a now-defunct online magazine called "SF Online" and features Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and Hiroki Sato. I have translated the following excerpt to the best of my ability; please forgive mistakes in the translation. Any suggestions regarding improvements would be much appreciated.

Sadamoto: The staff loved the work they were making. For the movie version, the truth is that there was a plan that had a story completely different [from the one used for the TV series], using only the original characters.

Sato: That had really been intended, [a film that] even people who hadn't seen the TV series could enjoy. But with the staff declaring themselves worn out, it didn't seem any longer possible. So, the thought was to do the remakes of episodes 25 and 26 for the film, making them along the lines of the left-over original script. So the original film fell through.

貞本 そう。へこたれちゃった。ぼくは最初の予定の劇場版が見たかったんですけどね。

Sadamoto: Right. [The staff] wore out. Though I wanted to see the movie that was originally planned.

Sato: If I had to say, and this goes back to our discussion about science fiction earlier, there was a desire, in the abandoned plans, to seriously construct a world where giant robots existed. For the design team, these sort of ideas were being brought together as another side of, well, if I had to say, it was something like a "Hard-gelion" (laughs).

Sadamoto: But they had been working forever on the TV series, and the entire staff needed to catch their breath. "You're telling us to keep going on with this difficult work for just one more year?" The whole staff was worn out, Anno included.

Sato: Because of that, when the TV series was finished Anno-san announced that we would take half a year off to rehabilitate before resuming work on the video version, and that we could work out the schedule to accommodate this. However, he was also then thinking about an original full-length [film].

Sadamoto: The plan was that - Eva takes place in a world of summer, right? - the art style would change drastically, and you would all of a sudden have Misato and the others appear wearing coats on snowy mountains in a world of winter. I was a bit enthused, inwardly, thinking how cool that would be. But that turned into the remake, and it was like, ahh, [now] there's nothing for me to do.

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Very interesting as usual, Numbers-kun. Your translations are often so useful.

And yet again, Olivier Hague has been vindicated! From http://eva.onegeek.org/pipermail/oldeva/2001-April/039702.html :

But did they ever state that there would be no more Eva? After all, they intended to make the Summer 97 movie an original story, independently from the alternate ending (first supposed to be released on video only)... And there are still some Gainax members who would like to make (or at least, to see ^^) that one.

It was supposed to take place in snowy landscapes (instead of the "endless summer" setting), to have new characters, and overall a more realistic touch (some of the Gainax members called it "a sort of Hard-gelion" ^^). Who knows?... In a few years, maybe?...

Which matches up perfectly with your Sato translation:

...well, if I had to say, something like a "hard-gelion" (laughing).

Also good to see more evidence of Okada's reliability.

I think this will help with interpreting the old interviews - the apparent equivocation was always confusing, but now that I know what Anno was talking about, perhaps some things will fall into place.

The broadcast of the TV series finished in March 1996. In April, it was announced that episode 25 ("A World Ending") and episode 26 ("The Beast that Shouted 'I' at the Heart of the World") would be remade following the original script [or scripts]. After that, the production of a movie version was announced. At the stage when production of the movie version was first announced, it was explained that it would be a completely new, original work, different from the remakes of episodes 25 and 26. In the end, the completely new Eva film version was not made, but I would love to know what it would have been like if it had been made.

The writer, Yuichiro Oguro, wrote the commentary for the original LD release of Evangelion and was responsible for the written content of the theatrical programs for Death and Rebirth and EoE. He also wrote extra commentary for the Tomo no Kai pamphlets. This is from an additional episode-by-episode commentary he published online in 2006 that deals a bit more with his personal feelings towards the series and the atmosphere at the time. He actually doesn't seem to be aware here of Sadamoto and Sato's comments.

Last edited by 1731298478 on Tue Nov 11, 2014 7:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

1731298478 wrote:The writer, Yuichiro Oguro, wrote the commentary for the original LD release of Evangelion and was responsible for the written content of the theatrical programs for Death and Rebirth and EoE. He also wrote extra commentary for the Tomo no Kai pamphlets. This is from an additional episode-by-episode commentary he published online in 2006 that deals a bit more with his personal feelings towards the series and the atmosphere at the time. He actually doesn't seem to be aware here of Sadamoto and Sato's comments.

1731298478 wrote:Sadamoto: The plan was that - Eva takes place in a world of summer, right? - the art style would change drastically, and you would all of a sudden have Misato and the others appear wearing coats on snowy mountains in a world of winter. I was a bit enthused, inwardly, thinking how cool that would be. But that turned into the remake, and it was like, ahh, [now] there's nothing for me to do.

It looks like Eva Q finally gave Anno his wintery Eva battles.... almost. We saw some snow in the beginning, but any actual Eva battles take place among a pit of giant skulls.

You know, with as confusing and as jumbled as these interviews are, what with projects that may for may never have been in serious consideration for production in the late 90's, it really just shows how unstructured Gainax really was at the time, how ill-adept at planning they were at the time, and how the Evangelion franchise really was their first big money-maker in their career. Everyone in house clamoring to get Anno and his creative team to do this or that with the existing ending that might lead into this or that kind of spin-off that may or may not be produced after EoE would be completely understandable if another Eva meant finally being in the black for the studio. Instead, they somehow managed to do things other than milk the Eva franchise dry of all of its creative resources.

In this context, I'd half expect Gainax to simply assign other people to the Eva franchise after Anno finished EoE, and just keep the Eva money train a-comin' with different directors and creative teams. I'm honestly kind of surprised that didn't happen.